Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides

In this exploratory drawing, the Roman artist Maratti imagined the complicated story of Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides, the hero’s eleventh labor. Commanded to steal three golden apples from the garden, Hercules persuaded Atlas to retrieve the apples for him but only after agreeing to bear the heavens and earth, Atlas’s burden. After practicing their weight-bearing poses at the paper’s edges, Maratti drew three women saddling Hercules with the heavens. A smaller-scale Atlas appears near the globe sketched at Hercules’s feet. The firmament on Hercules’s back provides the platform for three allegorical figures above: Victory, Honor, and Fame, symbols of triumph in late Baroque classicism. Maratti created the drawing in preparation for a painting cycle for his patron, the Bishop Ercole (Hercules) Visconti (d. 1712).

Maratti depicts an episode from Hercules’s eleventh labor, in which Hercules stole three golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides (the daughters of Night). Hercules enlisted the help of the Titan Atlas, who was charged with keeping the heavens and earth separate for all eternity. Hercules persuaded Atlas to retrieve the apples for him only after agreeing to bear the weight of the heavens temporarily. Maratti shows three women saddling Hercules with the heavens, represented by clouds, while the globe rests at his feet. The firmament on his back provides the platform for three allegorical figures above, Victory, Honor, and Fame, who represent Hercules Victorious. This and a related drawing at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, served as designs for an octagonal ceiling at the Villa Visconti, Rome, now destroyed.